The Apocalyptic Four
– AKA Eileen Bell, Randy McCharles, Ryan McFadden and Billie Milholland
What is your latest release and what genre is it? Our latest release was The Puzzle Box — a collaborative contemporary fantasy novel.
Quick description: It is a box that you can hold in the palm of your hand – but the contents will change your life forever. There is no simple way to open it: no hinges, locks, or clasps. To some, its six surfaces gleam like polished gold. To others, it appears dull and tarnished like a forgotten antique. For every person, solving the box will be different, with life-altering consequences.
“I have a great gift for you. Now I ask you: what do you want? What do you really want? You don’t have to tell me. It already knows.”
Albert Mallory, a down-on-his-luck archaeologist, begins to discover the true secrets of the Puzzle Box as revealed through four tales belonging to the the previous owners. As each story is told, the mystery of his own life slowly unravels until he is left with the biggest question of all: What’s Inside?
Brief biography:
Eileen Bell has written most of her life (usually as an antidote to whatever day job she had) and has had short fiction published in magazines and several anthologies, including the double Aurora Award-winning Women of the Apocalypse.
Recently, she and three other writers had a collaborative novel, The Puzzle Box, published through EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing. In 2014, she will have her own paranormal mystery, Seeing the Light, published through Tyche Books.
When she’s not writing or editing or thinking about writing, she’s living a fine life in her round house (even if it is in a perpetual state of renovation) with her husband, two dogs, and a gold fish.
Randy McCharles is active in the Calgary, Alberta, writing community with a focus on speculative fiction, usually of the dark and humorous variety. In 2009 he received Canada’s most prestigious award for SF & F, the Prix-Aurora Award, for the novella Ringing in the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta which appeared in Tesseracts 12 (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing) and was also reprinted in Year’s Best Fantasy 9 (David Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer, ed). Additional short stories have appeared in Tesseracts 11 & 16; as well as in the Urban Green Man, Okal Rel Opus 2, and Okal Rel Opus 6 (Absolute XPress).
In addition to writing, Randy chairs the When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers.
Ryan McFadden is an award-winning fantasy/SF author living in London, Ontario, who happens to be a full e-reader convert, and now uses those powers to help code books for publishers and authors.
His novella, Deus Ex Machina, was part of the Aurora-winning Women of the Apocalypse released in 2009. His recent publications include stories in Evolve 2, When the Villain Comes Home, Blood and Water, and Expiration Date. He is busy working on his next project in the always popular Neo-Noir Supernatural Crime Thriller category.
Billie Milholland is a Western Canadian writer of fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction titles include They Came and North Saskatchewan River Guide. She has had short fiction produced on CBC Radio, articles in Harrowsmith Magazine, children’s fiction in Chickadee Magazine, flash fiction in Seven Deadly Sins. A novella in Aurora-winning Women of the Apocalypse (Hungersnot). Short Fiction in Ride the Moon Anthology (Small Seven’s Secret)
Links to buy The Apocalyptic Four’s book:
Amazon Worldwide – eBook and paperback
Kobo – eBook
Chapters/Indigo – paperback
What are you working on now?
Right now, we are all working on individual projects.
Eileen Bell’s first “on her own” novel, Seeing the Light, will be launched in late 2014.
Randy McCharles’ novel Capone’s Chicago will be available spring 2014. His collection of three novellas, The Necromancer Candle, will be available August 2014.
Eileen’s reading recommendation:
Eileen’s reading Reamde by Neal Stephenson and she’s enjoying it immensely.
Reading Recommendations 
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